


The Aftermath - A WIP/Excerpt

by clockworksilence



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings Online
Genre: LOTR, LOTRO, M/M, POV First Person, but yolo, i have resigned myself to the fact that this will remain resolutely unread, mlm, standing stone but make it gayer, tolkien but make it gayer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 01:54:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30098502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockworksilence/pseuds/clockworksilence
Summary: The Pelennor is over. The battle is done but the war is far from over. With death comes perspective and the knowledge that, if life is too short, too precious, it is best lived to its fullest.
Relationships: Lothrandir (Lord of the Rings Online)/Original Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	The Aftermath - A WIP/Excerpt

_Lothrandir_

The feeling stays with me through the rest of the ceremony, all through the walk back to the City and continues to plague me as the Company, the Rohirrim and the men of Gondor join together to drink to the memory of the fallen.

It was not as though it was something I’ve been actively trying to ignore. For the most part, the knowledge and the awareness of it was passively sat at the back of my mind, a constant feeling on the periphery of things that had been patiently waiting all these years. There would always be another time, another place, another meeting… It could wait.

But seeing the bodies piled across the Pelennor and wondering what I might have done if Ledidir’s had been amongst them, the knowledge was no longer passive. It had become active, impatient and filled my head with screams, demanding to be submitted to and felt in its entirety. It crashes over me with the force of a gigantic wave in the stormiest of oceans, again and again; the weight of the shared looks; each touch, accidental or not, and the fires they start within me. That being near him feels like coming home. Wanting to be near him at all.

I love him. I’m _in_ love with him. So fiercely, so intensely, I can feel myself drowning in it.

I try to drown the feeling myself but no amount of ale can quell the flames that are beginning to rage out of control. Looking at him from across the room, taking in his beauty, wanting nothing more than to touch him, to hold him, to kiss him is a particularly exquisite form of torture but I want the pain to stop.

My absence from the midst of the gathering does not go unnoticed by all. Daervunn, ever conscious of all his Brothers, spots me on the periphery and frowns, confused. I suppose seeing me away from the centre of things is rather odd. Indeed, I am very often the instigator of things where alcohol is involved.

Quietly excusing himself, Daervunn approaches me, concerned by my melancholy.

“Will you not join us, Lothrandir?” He asks, innocently enough.

I shake my head. “Later, perhaps.”

Short sentences and a reluctance to continue the conversation; I can feel Daervunn’s concern grow.

“You seem troubled, friend,” he says quietly, placing his drink on the table behind us, folding his arms.

“Perceptive as ever,” I chide, taking a sip of ale.

Daervunn laughs a little.

“What is it?”

I sigh, gazing across the room at Ledidir, vibrant in the presence of the Company.

“Do you think we choose it?” I begin softly, watching the Elf smiling, my heart aching at the sight of it.

“Choose what?” Daervunn asks.

I take a moment before replying. “Who the heart calls for?”

When Daervunn continues, I can hear a suppressed, bemused smirk in his words.

“Who does your heart call for?” He asks, picking his mug up, about to take another drink.

I say nothing. I don’t even look at Daervunn. My gaze is fixed where it has been for some time. Baffled, Daervunn follows my line of sight across the room to the silver-haired Elf and seems to put things together.

“Ledidir?” He asks, lowering his voice.

I exhale a hollow laugh and, looking down, nod briefly.

“Your heart calls for Ledidir?”

“Rather loudly, as it happens,” I joke, though this feels far from entertaining.

It is Daervunn’s turn for silence now. He stands beside me, fidgeting with his tankard, trying to process this new information.

“I knew there was a bond between the two of you,” he finally says. “At first I thought it was merely kinship. You have been friends for a long time.”

“I know.”

“But I confess, there were moments between you that I wondered whether you and he...”

“Whether what we had was deeper than kinship?” I cut across him, glancing over at him.

The torch that I’ve been carrying for Ledidir must be a heavier weight to bear than I thought and it must show on my face.

“Do you love him?” Daervunn enquires delicately, seeing my pain.

It’s at that exact moment Ledidir looks across the room at the both of us and for a frantic moment I wonder whether, beyond the raucous chat and rowdy conversation, he managed to hear us.

It’s at that moment when his eyes meet mine and he offers a fleeting smile that I feel the familiar bolt of nervousness and excitement – a feeling that has not altered after all these years—and know for a fact that I do.

I wait for Ledidir’s attention to move elsewhere before offering Daervunn confirmation.

“More than anything,” I say, simply and quietly, my heart bursting as I do through sheer relief of finally saying it out loud.

Daervunn remains silent for a moment, wondering how best to continue. While he does not seem entirely surprised with the revelation, my being quite so forthright seems to have wrong-footed him.

“Is it reciprocated?” Daervunn asks, falteringly.

I can’t tell him about what happened when he came to find me in Forochel. I can’t tell him about the kiss at Nan Curunir or the near thing at Pelargir, or that during my hours in the Houses of Healing, not once did he leave me side.

I do not have to. My silence apparently speaks volumes.

“Then what in the name of all that is good in this world are you waiting for?”

I find myself laughing. “You make it sound simple.”

“It is,” Daervunn implores. “Look at what happened today, Lothrandir. Can you honestly tell me you can be content with your life if you never do anything about this? That if the worst should happen, you would not regret missing that chance?”

I remain silent. He is right, as always. But after so long, after pretending that what is obviously between us does not exist, to breathe life into it scares me almost as much as the prospect of losing him does.

“I do not claim to entirely understand your situation,” he continues, compassionately. “And while I believe we have no choice in who our perfect match might be, I do believe that even if we did, you would choose him.”

“How do you know that?” I ask, dismissive.

Daervunn throws me a knowing smile.

“Because,” he says, making to leave, “you have been choosing him every day since you first met.”

He walks away, back to the group he left minutes earlier, and I’m left with his words ringing around my head: _what are you waiting for_?

Ledidir looks across at me once more and I’m struck with the realisation that, no matter where we are or what we do, he always looks for me. He always seeks me out. And I do exactly the same for him. An anchor in a storm-thrown sea.

This time he does not look away. Perhaps there’s an intensity to my gaze that he finds compelling or he’s sensing the maelstrom of emotions surrounding me and is trying to make sense of them. Either way, sharing eye-contact in a room full of people oblivious to it is suddenly incredibly intimate. And, for once, that fact does not frighten me.

_What **am** I waiting for?_

I down the last of my drink in the hopes that the liquid courage fuels me, then rise from my seat and walk around the centre table towards Ledidir, realising part way around that I don’t necessarily have a plan for what to do when I get to him. Curious, Ledidir places his own cup on the table and eases himself up from his own seat. As I approach, he offers me a smile. Through my determination, it goes unreturned. Instead, I cast a last furtive look around the party to ensure nobody is paying us any attention. Satisfied that the masses are either too drunk or too distracted to care, I gently take the Elf by the wrist and lead him to a doorway at the far end of the hall and into a darkened stairwell.

Ledidir does not fight or argue. He doesn’t say a word until we are away from the eyes and ears of everyone else. He follows me, slipping behind the thick, wooden door, closing it just enough for a sliver of light to cut through the black beyond.

“Lothrandir, what-?” Ledidir begins, but he cannot finish his sentence.

I succumb to the want that has filled me all evening, I take his face into my hands and kiss him so fiercely, so forcefully, it takes him by surprise. He takes a few steps backwards, stopping as his spine meets the cool stone of the staircase, my body flush against his and hesitates for only a second before kissing me back.

The second I feel it returned, the second we both surrender to each other, I begin to feel myself settle. His arms fold under mine, his palms against my back, holding me close.

But before he can surrender to it entirely, footsteps all too near the barely-closed door to our right snap Ledidir back to his senses: this is not as private a moment as he craves.

Loathe as he is to do it, Ledidir pulls away from me.

“ _P_ _ost,_ Lothrandir,” he whispers, trying to catch his breath.

I gently press my forehead against his.

“What is it?” I pant.

I watch as Ledidir casts a quick, surreptitious glance to the door before looking back at me, shamefaced at his own reservations.

“You fear being discovered?” I ask, voice low.

“You do not?” Ledidir replies.

“I care not,” I say, moving to kiss him again.

“Lothrandir...” Ledidir whispers, weakly.

“I care not,” I repeat, placing a delicate kiss on his lips. “I love you.”

I did not know how heavy it was, keeping those three, innocent words to myself but finally voicing them, putting it into the world, I feel a head-spinning lightness. I say them again and again between kisses, wondering how on earth they should have been so difficult to say at all. I pause for a moment, feeling Ledidir smiling broadly, laughing gently.

“And I you, Lothrandir,” he says, in a toned so hushed as to be near reverent.

The world slows as all noise quietens. I close my eyes, breathing in this most sacred moment, gently pressing my forehead to his. Nothing feels real except him. I move my arms from around him and reach for his hands, feeling his fingers entwine around mine, noting how perfectly they seem to fit together.

“I have waited too long to hear those words from you,” Ledidir notes, voice still quiet.

I laugh a little. “I waited too long to say them. I always assumed we had more time. That, if I even needed to say it at all, there would be another moment, another day...”

“And that no longer feels like a certainty?”

I sigh, shaking my head. “I took it for granted, you and I. But no more.”

I gaze into Ledidir’s eyes, blue and endless, and as lost as I could fall within them, the weight of the battle to come keeps me tethered to reality.

“We ride out tomorrow,” I say. “And I know not if either one of us will return from the journey.”

Ledidir looks at me solemnly; the same thought has obviously been clouding his thoughts too.

“I know only one thing,” I continue, hardly believing what I am about to propose. “I do not want to leave this world unbound from you. To leave and not know what it is to be yours.”

Eyes fixed on mine, Ledidir hesitates for only a second before he makes to ascend the stairs, leading me to follow.

“So come with me and know it.”


End file.
